The northern shrimp (Pandalus borealis) offshore fishery in the Northeast Atlantic.

This chapter describes the development and current situation of the offshore shrimp fisheries in Iceland, Greenland, Svalbard, Jan Mayen and the Norwegian Barents Sea area, with information on the biology of Pandalus borealis and its relation to the environment. Some additional information about the inshore shrimp fisheries of Iceland and Greenland of relevance to this study is also included. The Icelandic offshore shrimp fishery started in 1975 and has formed between 68% and 94% of the annual catch of shrimp since 1984. Landings peaked at 66,000 tons in 1997. The offshore fleet increased threefold from 1983 to 1987, and catch per unit of effort doubled. The first signs of overfishing were detected in 1987, when the first total allowable catch (TAC) was set, and catches decreased during the next few years despite the discovery of new fishing grounds. Good recruitment allowed catches to rise steadily from 1990 to 1996. However, catches and stock index have decreased markedly since then, with a minimum catch for the period 1998-2003 of 21,500 tons in 2000. It has been suggested that predation by cod is an important factor affecting shrimp stock size, but mortality from predation is slightly lower than fishing mortality, so that the impact of fishing cannot be disregarded. The Greenland offshore shrimp fishery is one of the largest in the North Atlantic and it generates 90% of the export value of the country. The fishery started in 1970 in West Greenland with landings of 1200 tons, but since 1974 it has formed between 59% and 89% of the annual shrimp catch. In 2004, landings reached 113,000 tons and the fishable stock was estimated at 300,000 tons. The significant spatial expansion of the fishery from the original fishing grounds off the Disko Island area to all of the West coast south of 75 degrees N and the fleet improvement over the past three decades have made possible this spectacular growth. Other fishing grounds off the East coast have been fished since 1978, mostly by foreign vessels. Catches in this area oscillated between 5000 and 15,000 tons during the period 1980-2004. The main problem of the shrimp fishery in Greenland is its overlapping with nursery areas of redfish, Greenland halibut, cod and other groundfish species, some of which show declining trends of biomass and abundance. This led to the implementation in 2000 of sorting grids and laws that forbid fishing when the bycatch exceeds legal limits. However, it is likely that ecological processes only partially understood, such as the trophic web and hydrography of the area, greatly influence the stock abundance of the demersal community. The offshore Norwegian fishery started in 1973. The main fishing grounds are off Svalbard and in the Barents Sea. Catches at Jan Mayen have never exceeded 5% of the total annual catch of northern shrimp. Large fluctuations in catches and stock size are the main characteristic of this fishery. Stock size seems to be largely dependent on the annual hydrographic variability in the area and trends in abundance of predator species, especially cod. However, shrimp mortality due to predation has been estimated to be the same as fishing mortality, and therefore fishing probably accounts for part of the observed variability in stock size. Large populations of juvenile cod, haddock, redfish and Greenland halibut are often found on the shrimp fishing grounds. The implementation of sorting grids in 1991 and a bio-economical model in 1993 to estimate allowable maximum catches of the commercial bycatch species have not solved the bycatch problem. All the commercial fish species present on the shrimp grounds are currently below safe biological limits. This is the only fishery within the studied area that is not regulated by means of a TAC system.